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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Food & Toiletries Spending.......January Totals

Onward to January's food spending report.......

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for JANUARY 2014.

I have posted January's totals on the Total Grocery Savings for 2014 Page located HERE and have updated the Yearly Totals there.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in January. If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Summary.

My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Pet Supplies, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 4(3 at home this month)& 1 dog. No kids under 17.
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My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Walmart at 100%, Rite-Aid at 97.78%, and Weis at 43.78%. My WORST savings rate was 39.14% so I think I did exceptionally well in January on the value of what I got!
I shopped at 4 different stores this past month.

TOTAL Out of Pocket........$297.37

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$298.17

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$595.54

TOTAL Savings of...................................50%

This closes out the January food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....

I went into January wanting to cut my food/toiletries budget by $100, to $300 budgeted for ALL purchases. I accomplished that feat in December so I wanted to try again this month.
I met that challenge.
Go me! 8-))

That $100 on a long ago paid for gift card I spent at Walmart went a good ways toward achieving a 50% savings rate in January. Don't be expecting me to have more months as good as this one! lol

(Of course I DID withdraw some Feb. food spending funds the last few days and used it to get some deals on the February tab that weren't going to be around to get in Feb. But that spending will be accounted for in the February Spending post.)

LOOKING AHEAD TO FEBRUARY......

Of course, I doubt I can sustain a $300 monthly food budget long term.
I am going to try to come in under $300 on food for February but if I go over into the $400 range I won't be too upset, since $400 is my normal spending set point.

I will say that I found eating relatively healthy AND still keeping your food spending under $300 is HARD WORK!
It takes more planning, comparing and getting to certain stores, it takes changing your eating habits at times(having the same thing over and over or something you didn't really want to eat). If I had to keep on a strict regiment of $300 a month due to income restraints it would wear on me.
To have to do it in the short term is interesting and a challenge and something I can get "into".

I don't know......am I just plain crazy to want to try to reduce our food spending by 25% of our usual budgeted amount....and amount which seems fairly LOW to begin with?
I have always been up for a money challenge I guess.

I figured with spending under $300 on food/toiletries this month, my Entertainment/Eating out spending would have been proportionately higher, right?

I tallied up our Eating Out spending for January and it came in at $96.86.
We ate out 3 times this month and had take-out twice, plus there was $ I gave to #2 Son for a run to McDonalds accounted for in that total.

Much of our meals out was paid for with free birthday certificates and one whole meal for 2 was comped at Lone Star. Even with me eating for free at 3 restaurants plus a free pizza at one of those 3 restaurants, we still spent $55.93 at those 3 places. That amount was for tip & drinks at one, just the tip where the meals were comped, and tip, salads and drinks at the third location. Then $7.93 for #2 Son at Mickey D's.
$96.86 is not a lot to spend for 11 individual adult sized meals out + tips, but if it hadn't been for birthday meals we probably wouldn't have gone out/ordered in 6 times.

We have substantially cut down on our eating out spending for January. That is a good thing..... 8-)

Without the Rite-Aid totals added in, my January Savings Rate is 43%. Achieving a savings rate in the 40's is what I shoot for, with or without shopping at Rite-Aid.

If you have other ideas or guidelines you follow please leave a comment and share yours with us all.

The average monthly food/toiletries spending this year so far is $297.37.

How much did you spend on food/toiletries in January?
Do you track your yearly food spending?

Hey there! Thanks for leaving a comment. Though I moderate it's partly to keep spam out but also partly so that I read every comment. I don't often respond to comments so if you need me to answer you please write me at my email addy posted on my "About Me" page, linked on the side bar.

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About Me

Welcome to my blog! I'm just an older mom, simple gal living my life as best I can. I enjoy saving money, talking frugality, couponing, compacting, personal finance, genealogy, about the South, art, theater and sewing, interspersed with my humorous take on the world and my daily adventures.
You can email me directly at arcure(at)ptdprolog(dot)net.